themselves. In reality no lunatic projector, not Cleombrotus leaping
into the sea for the sake of Plato's Elysium, not Erostratus committing
arson at Ephesus for posthumous fame, not a sick Mr Elwes ascending the
Himalaya, in order to use the rarity of the atmosphere as a ransom from
the expense of cupping in Calcutta, ever conceived so awful a folly. Oh,
playful Sir John Mandeville, sagacious Don Quixote, modest and ingenious
Baron Munchausen!--ye were sober men, almost dull men, by comparison
with the _tête exaltée_ from some upper element of fire, or limbo of the
moon, who conceived this sublime idea of leaping forward by a thousand
miles, to lay salt on the tail of a possible or a conceivable enemy. The
enemy--the tail--the salt--these were all _in nubibus_; the only thing
certain was the leap, and the thousand miles. And then, having achieved
this first stage on the road, why not go on to St Petersburg, and take
the Czar by the beard? The enormity of this extravagance showed from
what mint it came. Ever since we have harboured the Czar's rebels in
England, there has been a craze possessing our newspaper press, that
Russia was, or might be, brewing evil against India. We can all see the
absurdity of such reveries when exemplified by our quicksilver neighbour
France, bouncing for ever in her dreams about insults meditated from the
perfidious England; but we are blind to the image which this French
mirror reflects of our own attitude towards Russia. One hundred and
fifty years ago, the _incubus_ which lay heavy on the slumbers of
England was the Pope; of whom Swift remarked, that constantly his
holiness was seen _incog_. under one disguise or other, drinking at
gin-shops in Wapping, and clearly proved to be spying out the nakedness
of the land. In our days the Pope has vanished to the rear of the
English phantasmagoria, and now lies amongst the [Greek: neknôn amenêna
kasêna]. But not, therefore, is England without her pet nightmare; and
that nightmare is now the Czar, who doubtless had his own reasons lately
for examining the ground about Windsor and Ascot Heath--fine ground for